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A Miracle: I Survived The Bite Of A Black Widow Spider

(FYI: Nothing in this missive is to be taken as medical advice. If you are in need, go to the Great Physician.)

It was in the middle of the summer, and the temperature had soared to over a hundred degrees every day for the past three weeks. Our puny little air conditioner could never seem to keep up with the heat. I was getting sick of it. Literally.

So when my husband told me that it was going to be another blistering day, I decided to take my paperwork and go downstairs to sit by the air conditioner.

But the Holy Spirit told me no. “Stay up here and work,” He told me.

But I became angry at the command. “No!” I said in response. “I am sick and tired of being so hot all the time! I’m getting a break from it!”

So I took my work and went downstairs.

It was much cooler there. I sat at the table (this was the school table where we did our work during the week,) and felt relieved as I felt the cool breeze on my skin.

Then I felt something crawling on my leg. I thought it must be the fly that had been in the kitchen earlier. I felt the Holy Spirit tell me to look and make sure, but once again, I foolishly ignored Him. Without looking, I used my other foot to brush it off my leg.

That night, began one of the worst nights of my life. My heart pounded like it was trying to escape my chest, and every time I tried to lay down, I felt my lungs fill up with fluid till I had to sit up just to breathe. My head ached, and I felt almost like I had a severe case of the flu.

For three days, I was intensely ill.

I went back to the Lord and begged for His forgiveness, and asked Him to have mercy on me and help me. I push prayed until I heard Him give me directions. He told me not to go to the hospital, but instead was to take a certain number of vitamin C’s, B vitamins, and calcium pills, and to repeat this as He instructed.

I told Him that I could not, for I had run out of calcium pills several days ago, and was waiting for the shipment to arrive any day.

“Go look,” He said.

“It’s not there, Lord! I’d just be wasting my energy!”

“GO LOOK!”, He insisted.

Sigh. I knew my God was not going to give up. So I said “Fine! I’ll go look!”

It wasn’t where I usually keep it; it was sitting right at eye level, in front of the other bottles of assorted vitamins.

I was amazed. I figured that my husband had probably seen the shipment, and had begun unpacking it for me, but got called away before he could put them all away.

I thanked God, took the medicine, and slowly started to feel better.

A week later, and I was still suffering from the strange symptoms. So I went to the doctor.

He listened to my symptoms, looked at my swollen leg, (It looked like I had a half a grapefruit hiding under the skin,) and promptly diagnosed me with a black widow spider bite. He said I was fortunate that I had survived the poison, but that there was little he could do for me now, as the worst of the danger had passed. (The anti-venom was contraindicated this late in the game.)

So I went home, and researched on line what one could do for a black widow spider bite. To my amazement, one web site suggested taking large doses of vitamin C, B vitamins, and calcium, every few hours.

I thanked my husband for putting the bottle of calcium in my closet, but he said he didn’t do it. “Maybe one of the boys did it,” he replied. I figured he must be right.

But a week later, I got a notice in my email from the supplier of those calcium pills. “We are sorry to inform you, that the product you ordered has not yet shipped out, because it is still on back order…”

I was shocked. I went back into the closet to stare at the bottle of calcium pills. They looked no different from what I usually use. They were the same brand and dose as I usually keep on hand. But I took them and hugged them to my chest, and thanked God for sending them to me. When they ran out, I wanted to keep the bottle to remember it by, but the Lord said it might become an idol and that I was not to keep it, so I threw it out.

The symptoms lasted for close to a year. It is not something I would wish upon another living thing, ever.

This last night of Hanukkah, we remember what the Lord Jesus has done for us. This was one of them.